Saturday, 5 October 2013

Andy Serkis, whose Imaginarium Studios are currently in the process of adapting 'The Bone Season' for the big screen
- the first novel in this phenomenal new seven-part fantasy series,
which flung 22-year-old Samantha Shannon into the spotlight when
she was hailed as 'the next J K Rowling' by the international press.

'We all immediately saw its potential as a fantastic feature film,' Serkis said of The Bone Season. 'She’s
very warm and a passionate storyteller - dedicated beyond belief. We’re
working very closely with her on all aspects of bringing the world of
the book to the screen. We’ve been involving her with all the early
concept artwork that we’re beginning to put together. Obviously it’s her
world so we want to make sure we bring it to life in the way that she
wants.'

What is it about The Bone Season that compelled you to include it in The Imaginarium Studio's very first slate of films?We
first came across the manuscript at the London Book Fair and
immediately fell in love with the scope, the scale and the exceptional
detail of the world Samantha had created. It’s a really compelling story
with such a great central character – we all immediately saw its
potential as a fantastic feature film.

Have you met Samantha Shannon and how involved will she be in the film's production?

Yes
of course – she’s a delightful, incredibly intelligent person. She’s
very warm and a passionate storyteller- dedicated beyond belief. We’re
working very closely with her on all aspects of bringing the world of
the book to the screen. We’ve been involving her with all the early
concept artwork that we’re beginning to put together. Obviously it’s her
world so we want to make sure we bring it to life in the way that she
wants.

Can you tell us about how the creative process for adapting a story like The Bone Season begins?

It
begins with knowing the story you want to tell. There are thousands of
stories contained within the world that Samantha has created - we have to
be very disciplined about opening up the world in a way that will lead
us on to further investigation in the rest of the series. We need to
find the emotional heart of the story; the relationships; the tension;
the suspense and the drive, and of course working closely with Samantha
is going to make it much easier.

At
this very early stage it’s about finding the right writer and the right
approach to telling the story. Hand in hand with developing the
screenplay it’s also about developing the visual world and bringing that
to life, finding the right visual effects team who understand
Samantha’s concepts.

You have been part of bringing some of the world's most famous and
well-loved fantasy worlds to contemporary audiences. Which of your
experiences across film, TV, stage and video games would you say has
been most helpful in preparing you to produce The Bone Season?

It
would be impossible to single out any one single experience, it’s an
accumulation of all my experiences to date, but obviously having worked
on The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien’s extraordinary world with Peter
Jackson is incredibly useful. Peter basically gave me the opportunity to
work on a lot of extraordinary characters in a lot of extraordinary
worlds and has opened up my eyes to a genre that I knew very little
about before.

Will performance capture will come mostly into play when portraying
Shannon's Rephaim race on screen in The Bone Season? Can you give us any
insight into how you'd like these characters to appear?

We’re
in very early stages of designing how we want to portray these
characters, and are exploring a variety of avenues to bring these
characters to life. We’re certainly not tied to any one production
technique at this early stage.

Animal Farm is the other film on your inaugural slate. What can you tell us about this project?

We’re
extraordinarily excited about Animal Farm. We have been working on the
methodology this year, the development of the characters and the story.
We’re working with a wonderful character designer and very pleased with
how the animals are developing as visual characters. In
terms of story, we’re remaining very truthful to the original book
however we are relocating the setting as if Orwell were writing in the
present day - we’ve been working very closely with the Orwell estate on
this.

Your talents are very varied! If you could only do one thing for the
rest of your career, which would you choose (stage/TV/film/video game
roles, voice roles, director or producer)?

The year is 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the
criminal underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a
man named Jaxon Hall. Her job: to scout for information by breaking
into people’s minds. For Paige is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant and, in
the world of Scion, she commits treason simply by breathing.

It
is raining the day her life changes for ever. Attacked, drugged and
kidnapped, Paige is transported to Oxford – a city kept secret for two
hundred years, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. Paige is
assigned to Warden, a Rephaite with mysterious motives. He is her
master. Her trainer. Her natural enemy. But if Paige wants to regain her
freedom she must allow herself to be nurtured in this prison where she
is meant to die.

The Bone Season introduces a compelling
heroine and also introduces an extraordinary young writer, with huge
ambition and a teeming imagination. Samantha Shannon has created a bold
new reality in this riveting debut.